Friday, February 27, 2009

Returning to the subject of Monday's post, Texas governor Rick Perry appears to be laying the groundwork for scaled-back drug testing of high school athletes in the state. In this Houston Chronicle article, Perry's spokeswoman notes that the governor “would be open” to a less ambitious (and presumably, expensive) alternative. The state's lieutenant governor, an early and ardent advocate of the testing program, also says he's open to change.

To recap, 29,000 athletes - in the latest round, 12,159 boys representing 10 sports and 6,658 girls representing 12 sports -have been screened for performance-enhancing drugs in Texas. Eleven have tested positive. Here are the positive results, by sport. (In several cases, the athletes testing positive participated in more than one sport.)